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Questions and Answers
What does a coefficient of 1 indicate regarding the variation in a trait?
The non-shared environment leads to similarities between family members.
False
What neurotransmitter is primarily studied in relation to crime?
Serotonin
The MAOA gene is responsible for metabolizing neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine, serotonin, and _______.
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Match the following individuals with their significance in relation to the MAOA gene.
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What significant insight did Phineas Gage's case provide?
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Monozygotic twins are also known as fraternal twins.
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What do higher concordance rates in identical twins suggest about criminal behavior?
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The heritability coefficient ranges from ___ to ___.
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Match the following types of twins with their definitions:
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Study Notes
Key Biological Theories of Crime
- Phineas Gage: A 19th-century railroad construction foreman who survived a severe brain injury in 1848. This case provided the first documented evidence of the brain's link to personality and behaviours.
- Twin and Adoption Studies: These studies suggest a genetic component to criminal behaviour, with identical twins showing higher concordance for criminal behaviour compared to fraternal twins. Adoptive children also tend to be more similar to their biological parents in terms of criminal behavior than their adoptive parents.
- Limitations of Twin Studies: MZ twins are treated more alike by parents than DZ twins. MZ twins usually share one placenta and DZ twins usually have two, leading to potential confounding factors.
- Heritability Coefficients: Statistical measure indicating the proportion of variation in a trait attributed to genetic differences within a population.
- Shared vs. Non-shared Environment: Shared environment refers to factors that are experienced by both individuals in a family, while non-shared environment refers to unique individual experiences.
- MAOA Gene: This gene metabolizes neurotransmitters like norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine. It has been linked to criminal behaviour.
- Stephen Mobley & Bradley Waldroup: Individuals whose cases highlight the legal and ethical implications of genetics and criminal behaviour.
- Neurotransmitters and Crime: Serotonin has been studied most extensively, with lower levels correlating with aggression.
- Hormones and Crime: Testosterone shows a small positive correlation with aggression.
- Psychophysiology: Focuses on the relationship between physiological responses (like heart rate, galvanic skin responses) and psychological processes, seeking to understand crime.
- Fearlessness Theory: Some individuals do not experience elevated heart rate or sweaty palms when stressed, leading them to take risks, potentially including crime.
- Stimulation-Seeking Theory: Some individuals have a strong desire for excitement and sensory experiences, potentially leading to engaging in criminal activity.
- Brain and Crime: Brain structure and function can be linked to criminal behaviours. Damage to the prefrontal cortex can impact emotional regulation, decision-making, impulse control, and cognitive flexibility.
- Neuroimaging Studies: Utilize various imaging techniques to visualize brain structure and function, leading to greater insight into criminal behaviour.
- Environmental Factors and Crime: Exposure to toxins, like lead, especially during childhood, can impact brain development and lead to outcomes like poor educational performance and attention deficits.
- Diet and Crime: Poor diet can contribute to increased aggressive behaviour and acting out.
- Importance of Theories: Theories are crucial for guiding practices, prioritizing causal factors, and understanding the potential course of treatments.
- Evaluating Theories: Theories should be simple, speak to causality, be falsifiable, evidence-based, cross-disciplinary, and respectful.
Evolutionary-Based Theories of Crime
- Natural Selection: Process driven by environmental factors that favors organisms better adapted for survival and reproduction, leading to the propagation of advantageous traits.
- Reproductive Success: The ability of an organism to successfully produce offspring that survive and reproduce themselves, ensuring the passing on of genes.
- Selection Pressures: Environmental factors influencing which individuals are more likely to survive and reproduce.
- Successful Adaptations: Traits providing an advantage in survival and reproduction within a particular environment.
- Environmental Cues: Signals or changes in the environment that organisms respond to, adapting their behaviour, physiology, or development for survival benefit.
- Mating Effort: The energy and resources an organism invests in reproductive activities to attract mates and reproduce successfully.
- Parental Investment: The time, energy, and resources parents dedicate to raising offspring, ensuring their survival and future reproductive success.
- Ancestral Selection Pressures: Environmental challenges and factors faced by early ancestors that shaped the evolution and adaptation of species.
- Sneaker Salmons: An example of a reproductive strategy, illustrating concepts related to mating strategies, reproductive success, and behavioral ecology.
- Criticisms of Evolutionary Perspectives: Emphasis on aggression and violence while neglecting other types of crime. Difficulty in applying to certain crimes like child molestation. Limited empirical testing compared to theorizing.
- Evolutionary Psychology: Studies how evolution has shaped human behavior and mental processes, focusing on the influence of traits and behaviors that aided ancestral survival and reproduction on modern human psychology.
- Evolutionary-Based Theories of Crime: Examine criminal behavior through the lens of evolutionary psychology and biology, suggesting that aspects of human behavior, including criminality, can be understood by considering evolutionary pressures on human development.
- Evolutionary Forensic Psychology: Studies the application of evolutionary principles and theories to understand criminal behaviour and psychological traits related to crime.
- Male-on-Male Violence from an Evolutionary Perspective: Can be understood through concepts like competition for resources, sexual selection, and dominance hierarchies.
Prominent Psychodynamic Theories of Crime
- Freudian Theory and Crime: Explores how the interplay of the id, ego, and superego can influence criminal behavior, suggesting that crime can result from an overly strict superego, weak superego, or deviant superego.
- Hirschi's Social Control Theory of Crime: Focuses on why individuals choose not to commit crimes, suggesting strong social bonds act as controlling forces against deviant behavior.
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Hirschi's Four Social Bonds:
- Attachment: Interest in others.
- Commitment: Time and energy invested in conventional values.
- Involvement: Engagement in conventional activities.
- Belief: Respect for societal values.
- Gottfredson and Hirschi's General Theory of Crime: Explains all crime and deviant behavior through the combination of lack of self-control and criminal opportunities.
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Two Key Elements in General Theory of Crime:
- Self-Control: Ability to resist immediate impulses and temptations in favor of long-term goals.
- Criminal Opportunities: Circumstances that allow individuals to commit crimes.
- Commonalities of Psychodynamic Theories: Emphasis on internal psychological forces, unconscious motives, and the development of the personality in shaping an individual's susceptibility to criminal behaviour.
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Description
Explore key biological theories that connect genetics and environment to criminal behavior. This quiz covers important cases like Phineas Gage, along with insights from twin and adoption studies. Understand the limitations of these studies and the concepts of heritability and environmental influences on crime.
